ïO ADD Dr. Richard f\.. M. Brickner's "Is Germany Incur- - able?" to the grow- ing body of evidence that it is as correct for us to say that we are fighting the "N azis" as it is for the Germans to say that they are fighting the I)emocratic Partv. . , Dr. Brickner is a recognized neuro- psychiatrist. His book contains introduc- tions by a famous anthropologist, Dr. Margaret Mead, and by a psychiatrist colleague, Dr. Edward i\. Strecker. Dr. Strecker's judgment: "Dr. Brickner has marshalled his premises carefully and thoroughly, and his conclusion is a rea- sonable one." The author believes that the German problem, while complicated by economic and historical factors, is basically men- tal. His central contention is that, dur- ing the last two h undred year , the paranoid elements in the German pop- ulation have increasingly dominated the non-paranoid elements until a condi- tion ( Nazism) has been reached in which the great majority of Germans are, from the point of view of the psy- chiatrist, homicidally insane. Dr. Brick- ner has no hatred for the Germans; he writes about them quite passionlessly, as if they were potential candidates for his consulting room. "- The first part of his sober, deter- minedly objective book describes, draw- ing on interesting case histories, the paranoid type in general. The paranoid's symptoms are: (1) the need to dom- inate; (2) suspiciousness; that is, the persecution complex; (3) megaloma- nia; (4) retrospective falsification, an inability to see his past conduct except as completely justifiable; (5) accusing others of what he wants to do him- self. The paranoid, granted his mad premises, thinks with impeccable logic and with far greater ingenuity, energy, and persistence than the non -paranoid. His paranoia, if not checked or cured, almost always leads in the direction of murder. He is unappeasahle and ordi- nary logic has no effect on him. You cannot "play fair" with or be "just" to the paranoid, because all just or fair actions are interpreted by him as weakness on the part of his persecu- tor. A paranoid who has what is known " I " O d 0 h 0 as a c ear or non-paranOl area In IS BOOKS There Are No Nazis thinking can be inB uenced by proper psychiatric techniques and, after a gen- erally lengthy course of treatmen t, often be cured or at least rendered harmless. Many, however, resist treatment. The asylums and jails are full of them, and the lethal chamber is the last home of some. Paranoids are found in almost al1 societies. \'T e have paranoid foci of in- fection in our own country-the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups. In Germany, Dr. Brickner believes, para- noids dominate the population and have been travelling for many generations on an upward curve. His demonstration of this mass psychosis is by no means com- plete (the hook runs to only around three hundred pages) but is sufficiently suggestive to warrant the attention of those few postwar planners who think that the best war to solve the German problem is to allow Germany to rule western Europe. Dr. Brickner traces the growth of paranoia in the Reich by various means. He quotes the public utterances of Ger- many's key political figures long before the "Nazis" appeared. He describes the German family, religious, and social setup. He quotes neutral observers. He offers a running analysis of German histor T of the past hundred and fifty years. He interprets, always from the psychiatric point of view, the German war and race cults, the German concept of the rôle of women, and the national acceptance of sadism as a legitimate pleasure. He cOIpments on what he terms the "paranoid international," which includes the Japanese and lunatic fringes arF10ng other peoples. The author believ s that there are three methods of dealing with the Ger- mans. The first is the Versailles meth- od. This helped to produce what he calls the Second Paranoid War and, if re-attempted, will produce the Third Paranoid \Var. The second method is that which Cato sold to the Romans and which resulted in the comple e annihila- tion of Carthage. He thinks our emo- tional bent precludes the use of this method, but has nothing to say about the emotional bent of the Poles, Czechs, Hollanders, and so on. The third meth- . BABQAI N T,H,OROUGHlY ;::p ,r,RAVEÐ ...... . ....h.. __ n.. ...-. ... ...... "0_- _______ ... .. ............-. '.- -. - ." . . . c.Á :Z>aAf